The Returned (44 page)

He looked to Laure to see the effect of what he’d said, and he was satisfied. She was looking away, tears in her eyes. She agreed with him, however hard it was.

‘Now,’ said Thomas to Julie. ‘Let him go.’

Julie looked around desperately, but there was no support in the faces surrounding her. Nobody to help. The officers moved towards her again. ‘Don’t,’ she said, holding her
hands up. ‘I’ll go with him.’

Thomas nodded. If that was what she wanted, then who was he to stand in her way? ‘If you like.’

It was too much for Laure. She stepped forward to Julie. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I told you,’ said Julie sadly. ‘I can’t leave him.’

Thomas nodded to the officers to escort Julie and the boy.

‘Wait,’ said Laure. ‘I love you, Julie. Stay with me. Please. I beg you.’

Julie embraced her, and kissed Laure’s cheek. ‘If things had been different, Laure,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t to be. He needs me, and I can’t let him go
alone. They won’t hurt me, I know they won’t.’

The two women parted, Laure watching in tears as Julie and the boy were led away.

Thomas raised his eyes again. There was one more.

He looked for the Séguret family. The eyes of the other people had already turned to them, betraying their location at the back. The father stood barring the way.

‘Move aside,’ said Thomas.

‘Not a chance.’

Three officers moved in and took hold, wrestling Jérôme to the ground as he struggled, overwhelmed. All he could do was watch as others stepped towards Camille.

‘No!’ shouted Léna, lashing out at them, trying to get between them and her sister. An officer took hold of Léna’s arm and dragged her away. ‘Let me
go!’ she shouted. ‘Let me go! Let me go with her!’

Camille and her mother stood there alone, arms around each other, holding on desperately, both in tears.

‘Do something!’ Claire cried at the bystanders. Pierre, who had come back from the gate, was simply standing there watching powerlessly. ‘For God’s sake, do
something!’ Even Frédéric just stood where he was, distraught but frozen.

‘There’s nothing to do,’ said a voice. It was Sandrine. She spoke without triumph, only exhaustion. ‘She’s one of them. If she stays, we’ll pay for
it.’

Claire hung her head. ‘I’ll go with her,’ she said, meeting Jérôme’s eyes as he and Léna were strong-armed into the building. She took Camille’s
hand.

‘Take everyone inside,’ said Thomas. He locked eyes with Pierre, who looked bereft: things hadn’t remotely gone the way he’d expected.
You’ve finally
understood,
Thomas thought.

Once indoors, Jérôme and Léna ran to the window. Léna started banging on the glass, crying out to her sister and mother as her father held her. Claire and Camille
looked back at them.

Thomas made the group halt a little way from the gate before he opened it. He walked up to Lucy. ‘Where is she?’ he said. ‘Where’s
Chloé?’

Lucy turned. Into the light stepped Simon, Chloé holding his hand, terrified. The sight of her, unharmed yet vulnerable, made Thomas’s throat tighten. He nodded to her and saw the
hope in her frightened eyes.

Simon looked at Thomas with a malicious smile, then bent down and whispered into Chloé’s ear. He let her go.

Chloé ran to Thomas; he knelt and held his arms out to her, then picked her up as she clung to him, trembling.

‘I have you,’ he told her, holding the tears back. ‘You’re safe now.’ Glaring at Simon, he gripped Chloé tightly to him. Then he gestured for the others to
come.

Viviane Costa passed him with only a look, a shake of the head:
Shame on you.
Thomas felt it, but holding Chloé he knew there were more important things than principles.

Claire Séguret and her daughter Camille came next, hand in hand. They didn’t even look at Thomas. He was glad. He didn’t think he would have been able to meet their eyes, a
mother and daughter he was sacrificing for the sake of his own family.

Finally, Julie Meyer and the boy.

‘Come on, Victor,’ said Julie. She was trying to put on a smile.

The boy tugged at her sleeve. She knelt, and he looked at her with adoration. ‘Louis,’ said the boy. ‘My real name is Louis.’ Julie hugged him hard. They took each other
by the hand and walked out past the reach of the lights, towards the waiting dead.

Thomas turned to walk away.

‘There’s one more,’ said Lucy Clarsen. ‘One more who must be made to come.’

He turned back. ‘Who?’

‘Adèle.’

Thomas stared. ‘What do you mean? Adèle’s not like you.’

‘She has to come with us,’ said Lucy. Beside her stood Simon, the smile on his face terrible to see, vindictive and triumphant. ‘If she doesn’t, we’ll take
her.’

Thomas looked at them both for a few seconds. Nothing would make him hand over the woman he loved to these creatures. He turned and started to walk back to the building. ‘Close the
gate,’ he told the officers.
For what good it will do
, he thought.

Adèle was at the doorway of the Helping Hand. She wanted to run to her daughter, but the officer at the door shook his head. She waited, and let Chloé run to
her.

She held her daughter, unable to speak, hugging her with overwhelming relief. She looked up at Thomas, smiling through tears.

‘Get inside,’ Thomas told her.

She nodded, but then realized that Thomas was staying where he was; that there was something wrong.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Aren’t they going to leave?’

Thomas stepped closer and hugged her. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep them away.’

‘I love you,’ she told him. She led Chloé inside the building, not taking her eyes off Thomas. She still didn’t know if she would stay with him, even after all this, but
she knew the most important difference now between him and Simon. There was real fear in Thomas’s eyes, but a determination to see things through. Everything Simon had ever done, it had
ultimately been for himself. This kind of selfless act would always be beyond him.

Thomas ordered the remaining few civilians to get inside the building, and his officers to remain outside. As the last people filed in, Laure approached him.

‘You abandoned your position, Laure,’ said Thomas.

‘Not this time, sir,’ she said.

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. ‘Welcome back, Inspector.’ With all the civilians inside, he closed the door and gathered his officers together.

‘We can’t know what they’ll do,’ he said, looking down to where the dead stood. ‘But these people only have us to defend them. Are you all with me?’

‘
Sir
,’ said his officers.

He sent Bruno and Michael to check that all the weapons had been removed from the convoy vehicles, and once everything had been distributed every officer had a sidearm and either a shotgun or
rifle.

Alcide was looking at his pistol as if it was a spider preparing to bite him. ‘Will these stop them?’ he said, terror plain on his face.

‘It stopped the man in the Lake Pub,’ said Thomas. ‘It’ll stop them long enough. They have to know that.’ He looked to the front door. Adèle and Chloé
were there, looking at him. He smiled at them, seeing the fear in their eyes. They needed someone in there with them. ‘Alcide,’ he said. ‘Laure. You two stay indoors. Keep
everyone calm.’

Alcide went to the door and opened it, waiting for Laure; she stood where she was.

‘If it’s all the same, sir,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay out here.’

Thomas nodded and turned to Alcide. ‘Pierre Tissier has the keys. Take them, and lock the doors. Then close the shutters. Don’t let anyone inside. Understood?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Alcide nervously. He went inside. After a few moments, all around the building the metal shutters started to slowly rumble down into place.

‘Everyone else take positions,’ said Thomas. He locked eyes with Adèle as the shutters descended. The moment he lost eye contact, he felt a terrible foreboding.

Laure caught his attention and nodded towards the gate, where the dead had been holding their line. Not any more. Now, slowly, they were making their way towards the Helping Hand building.

‘They’re coming,’ said Laure.

Once the shutters had fully closed, Adèle looked at Chloé and brushed the hair from her eyes. ‘It’s OK, my love,’ she said. ‘We’re
safe in here.’

Chloé leaned over and whispered in Adèle’s ear. ‘They want to come and get you,’ she said. ‘They want your baby.’

Adèle felt the blood drain from her.

They could hear some of the officers take their place on the roof above them. Two minutes passed. There were shouts, short orders barked by Thomas. Gunfire began.

Above them, they heard a loud thump, as if something had hit the roof hard. Suddenly all the gunfire was cut short, replaced by total silence.

Everyone in the room strained to listen, moving closer to the windows, trying to hear what was going on out there.

The lights in the Helping Hand went out. There was a cry of anguish from everyone. Torches came on, a patchwork of light on the walls and windows.

They all stood, tensing; another minute passed before the first impact on the shutters, the sound of a hand hitting metal. Regular and slow at first, the strength and number of impacts grew
inexorably. People huddled together, faces pale and frightened.

From the middle of the room, Pierre looked to the shuttered windows. ‘I don’t understand,’ he wailed, despairing. ‘This wasn’t how it was meant to be.’

Chloé was trembling. ‘Close your eyes, my love,’ Adèle told the girl. She covered Chloé’s ears with her own hands to block out the cacophony. Unable to do
the same for herself she was forced to listen, as the noise became overwhelming.

As the dead showed their anger.

Anton stood in the lower gallery of the dam.

The mist had finally cleared before dark fell. He’d still been weighing up his options when the first of the gallery sensor arrays had gone quiet. Within minutes, much of the lower gallery
was effectively unmonitored. It had been known to happen before, just a breaker at the central junction, but if it wasn’t resolved soon there was a chance that the automatic systems would
trigger the acoustic warning themselves, as they were designed to do if enough of the monitoring capability failed. Panic and terror in the town, all for the want of a simple switch.

Easy to fix. Quick to deal with.

He’d come this far. He just had to go down there.

Just this, he promised himself. Just this, and the next time he left the control room would be to get the hell out and drive.

When he reached the lower gallery, the lighting strips were dimming repeatedly. Regularly, he thought. Rhythmically.

Sure enough, the breaker had tripped. He flipped it back and waited a few seconds in case it immediately tripped again. While he waited, he cast his bright torch beam along the gallery.

He saw something, and ran further along to make sure of what he was seeing.

Water was dripping from the ceiling. Not much, just a steady drip, forming a small circular dark patch above him. He wiped it away. The drip stopped and he tried to work out where it had been
coming from. There was no sign of a crack, the concrete seemingly sound. He waited for the drip to reappear, but nothing came. He wiped at the damp with his hand, confused. Then he saw it again,
four metres further up. Another circular patch, dripping incessantly. He walked to it, and the moment he reached the drip it stopped. Anton looked further along the gallery, and there it was
another four metres on, where he was certain it had been dry seconds before.

Nothing about this suggested any kind of structural failure. The water just seemed to be passing right through the fabric of the dam itself.

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling his pulse quicken, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Then he followed it, the path being set out for him, followed it as the drips ahead of him
appeared, with a steadily increasing rate to match his own pace. And each time, the flow of water ceased as he reached it.

Leave
, he thought.
Run
.

But he had to see where he was being led.

The beam of his torch picked out the end of the gallery, where there had always been a rough cap of concrete terminating the tunnel. Now, all he could see was a dark hole. By the time he reached
it the flow of water from the ceiling was a steady stream, falling to the ground at his feet.

And in front of him, where the concrete tunnel should have ended, the walls instead continued, becoming rock, opening out into a deep dark cave extending into the side of the valley.

He walked on, taking care on the uneven floor. The only light was the beam of his torch. He put his hand on the bare rock, finding it curiously warm.

Sounds came from the darkness ahead. The same animal noises he’d heard the last time he’d come down here. Slowly, he raised his light. Twenty metres ahead stood a figure. Human,
filthy; head bowed, face covered by its hands. Clothed only in dirt.

The hands fell to its sides. The head came up. Seeing its face, Anton retreated, crying out; retreated from the cave until his hand touched concrete again.

He turned, ready to run without looking back. He felt air on his face, a breeze; he heard mournful sirens start to sound far above him. The automated systems had set off the acoustic warnings,
taking over the one action he’d stayed to perform.

Then Anton saw the dark wall of water rushing towards him. Icy and vengeful, as he’d always imagined it would be.

The assault on the Helping Hand stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

As the terrible noise grew, Alcide kept a watchful eye on those people close to panic, stepping in to reassure, telling them that the building was secure; that those outside couldn’t
breach their defences.

He didn’t believe it, of course. The moment he’d heard the gunfire from his colleagues suddenly silenced, without a single cry for help, he had known the forces outside were powerful
beyond reason. The crescendo of fist against metal grew to a peak, and Alcide thought it was only a matter of time before the dead would be upon them.